


looking at the stars (see them come alive)

by stvrryskies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Back to Earth, Canon Compliant, Gay Shiro (Voltron), Light Angst, M/M, POV Shiro (Voltron), Post-Kerberos Mission, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 06:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15382593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stvrryskies/pseuds/stvrryskies
Summary: Shiro gets reunited with his fiancé after three years.(Three years, four months, one week and six days. And the night sky is back to perfection.)





	looking at the stars (see them come alive)

**Author's Note:**

> // tw for dissociation.
> 
> title is from "we'll be the stars" by sabrina carpenter
> 
> special thanks to nico (@outrolyt on twitter) for beta reading and editing and helping me finish this uwu <3.

Shiro hadn’t expected it.   


To find his (ex?) fiancé waiting for him. Not after what he had told him right before he left.    
  
_ “Don’t expect me to be there for you when you come back.” _ __  
  
The words had kept him up at night. He didn’t want to believe them. He didn’t, and he refused to. Yet, there was always that tiny voice in his head telling him it was genuine. Adam wouldn’t be there for him. 

  
—   
  
The trip back to earth had been hectic. Shiro nearly died again. The galra were far ahead of them, though the team didn’t know this. (It had been quite shocking to find out.)   
  
When they first got to the land, it was night. No one seemed to notice the lions landing. Not even when the sky was so clear. That should have been their first warning sign.   
  
How could people not notice five giant mecha lions approaching?   
  
Next, there was no sound to be heard. No crickets chirping, no owls hooting. It was quiet and disappointing.   
  
Because those sounds would have been a lighthouse for his heart. They would remind him of all the nights he would stay up with Adam and gaze at the stars. Nights where they would listen to soft music and talk for hours without a worry. Nights where everything was okay. Where everyone was safe.   
  
And lastly, familiar, violet-lit structures were there to be seen in the distance.   
  
After having been imprisoned by these people for a year, Shiro could never get those out of his memory.   
  
—   
  
The attack happened soon enough.    
  
Galra fleets came flying from every direction. It wasn’t too hard to take those down. There were a lot of them, sure, but the team had dealt with them before.   


Not to mention that Lance is a great leader. With both Keith and Shiro’s help, everything worked out just right. It made him happy to see his students come this far. Though, seeing them soaring around in giant sentient robot cats wasn’t exactly where he thought they would end up.   
  
Sendak was the real problem. Or well, his new weapons and gear were. The team had to quickly readjust their fighting techniques to defeat the Galra’s new tech. The battle seemed endless, every strike depleting their energy and hope. Yet they kept fighting. Every weapon and fleet that was destroyed brought a new ray of hope, the paladins striking more and more fearfully whenever they got closer to winning.

 

When the fight ends and the dust has settled down, Shiro feels weightless. Sendak is closed in a pod, and Shiro doesn’t know what they are going to do with him but finds he doesn’t care as long as they are safe. He looks around and sees his team being surrounded by people wearing Garrison uniforms, some with frightened expressions and others attending the paladins’ wounds. A woman approaches Shiro and tells him something he doesn’t hear, but takes her extended hand nonetheless and lets her take him away into the Garrison. He’s too tired to ask where they are going, too tired to fight, too tired. He just wants to rest. He wants peace. 

 

—   
  
Nothing has changed since Shiro left those three years ago. Same grey walls. Same white lights. Same broken light bulb flickering in the hallway. Same people, though they all look a little different from the last time Shiro saw them. (Not that he hasn’t changed himself.)   
  


The woman shows him into a room near the hospital wing, tells him something about checking in with the doctors later. Shiro half listens. The bed in the corner of the room calls him with great urgency. He mumbles something to the woman, and she smiles, then leaves and closes the door. Shiro walks into the bathroom, finding a clean stack of clothes waiting for him. He takes a quick shower, hoping the water will wash away his tiredness, but it doesn’t. He still feels in a limbo. Like he’s back in the astral plane. The thought makes him shudder, and he walks out of the shower, puts some clothes on, and lays on the bed, letting himself be dragged into unconsciousness.

 

A knock on the door is what wakes him up. The clock shows it’s 3:27 in the morning. Not the most pleasant time to be woken up on.   
  
A group of people walk into the room without an invitation, their words jumbled together. Shiro’s half asleep brain doesn’t register the words, but he lets himself be ushered out into the hall. He’s pushed into the room adjacent to his and finds himself in a room full of people. 

 

It’s surprisingly quiet. He would’ve expected more people to be present. At least the press. Instead, he’s found in a room with his old colleagues Joaquim, Tim, Steve and Lauren and his current teammates.   
  
Lauren is talking to Lance, Keith, Hunk and Pidge in a corner, their voices mixing together in an array of high-pitched noises and laughter, while Steve and Tim make small talk with Allura and Coran, who appear to be excited and joyful despite the war they just fought.    
  


Shiro doesn’t know why are they awake at this hour of the night, but he doesn’t bother asking. He feels reassured, knowing his friends and teammates are okay. Shiro sits near Krolia and Joaquim, who are having an exhausting conversation, to say the least. Joaquim is uncharacteristically excited, asking Krolia questions about her different travels across the universe, missions, Keith and his father. (Texas appeared to be very familiar with the garrison).

  
  
Shiro stares out of the big window in the wall and starts drifting off, taking his mind off of everything that’s going on here right now. He doesn’t notice the man walking past the window and into the room, doesn’t notice how the man’s eyes light up at the sight of Shiro, doesn’t notice the sudden shift in the room, how all the stray pieces of the universe are woven together in the middle of the desert at that very moment, in that crowded room.    
  
Not until he feels a hand rest on his shoulder. Not until his soul wakes up under the touch. Firm. Safe. Familiar.   
  
He’s pulled back into reality.

 

  
All eyes in the room are on him. He turns his head to look at the hand on his shoulder. (And puts his own hand over it without meaning to.)   
  
His gaze trails up, past brown skin, past a sharp jawline, past pink lips, until he’s staring into a hazel set of eyes, glinting behind a pair of glasses that are all too familiar. All too bright.   
  
And all too easy, tears start streaming down his face.   
  
He can’t resist it. It’s been too long, too much. Shiro stands up in a flash, knocking over the chair with a tremendous sound, and rushes forward to press his lips against Adam’s. He throws one arm around his shoulder and squeezes tight, making sure everything is real. And it is. Everything else blurs out, turning into white noise, and all his brain registers is Adam. Adam, who’s kissing him back, his arms slipping around Shiro’s lower back in a way he missed entirely too much.    
  
After three years, the stars fall into place.   
  
(Three years, four months, one week, six days. And the night sky is back to perfection.)

  
—   
  
Shiro keeps stepping forward. Adam keeps having to step back so they don’t fall. They end up pressed against a wall, toppling over a small house plant on the way there (Shiro hopes that whoever is the owner of the room will excuse him), but they stop kissing as soon as Adam’s back touches the wall, and Shiro just buries his face in the crook of Adam’s neck, holding him as tight as possible, tears wetting the skin he hasn’t touched in so long.    
  
It doesn’t matter, thinks Shiro. Adam is doing the same, and the stars are back in their place.    
  
“You did wait,” Shiro chokes out, voice muffled.    
  
“Yeah,” Adam chuckles. The sound sends vibrations all over his chest, and Shiro shivers at the sensation. “Guess I couldn’t let you go that easily.”   
  
Shiro sighs contently. “I missed you so much,” he says, pulling back and touching Adam’s cheek with just the gentlest touch, afraid that it’s an illusion, afraid that it’s another dream, that he’s going to wake up alone in a bed, reaching out for someone that wasn’t there. But Adam is there, strong and sturdy, an anchor to the earth. Shiro runs a finger along Adam’s face, then rubs circles over it with his thumb. (He really missed doing that. He missed the feeling of floating on gravity zero. He had done that already, and he could confirm that being with Adam was ten times better.)    
  
“And there hasn’t been a day where I don’t think about you.”


End file.
